Netflix’s strengths that none of its rival streamers can match include its size and global reach, which give the streaming giant the resources to release a staggering amount of new content — including Netflix series as well as movies — from one week to the next.
Good luck keeping up with it all, especially if you’re a busy professional or have a family and are thus pressed for time in the evenings or on the weekends. If that includes you, we’ve included a list below that includes a slew of recent Netflix series which all offer the same benefit: While they span myriad genres, they all have short-enough seasons that you can easily binge them over the course of a day, or a weekend if you prefer.
Short on time? These Netflix series are quick binges
These first three Netflix series to check out are among the newest titles to hit the streamer in the US. They include:
The Law According to Lidia Poet (6 episodes): This Netflix series dramatizes the story of Italy’s first female lawyer and is set in Turin during the late 1800s.
In the show, Lidia Poet has just been handed a defeat by the Turin Court of Appeals, which declares her admission to the bar association unlawful. Prevented from practicing law just because she’s a woman, Lidia secures a job at her brother’s law firm, helps defend criminal suspects, and prepares an appeal of the court’s ruling in her case.
Physical 100 (9 episodes): This Korean reality series got a boost from BTS member Jungkook, who talked up the show during a recent live stream and helped turn Physical 100 into even more of an international hit than it already was. It quickly became one of the most-watched Netflix series in the world so far this year, and it’s basically a competition involving strength-related challenges … all for a cash prize.
From Netflix’s official synopsis: “One hundred contestants in top physical shape compete in a series of grueling challenges to claim the honor — and cash reward — as the last one standing.”
Red Rose (8 episodes): In this new horror series, per the streamer: “A ragtag crew of teens must survive a summer of terror after downloading an app that makes dangerous demands with deadly consequences.”
More Netflix series with short seasons to check out
These next Netflix series, meanwhile, go a little farther back and include some of the highest-profile releases to hit the streamer in recent months (as well as some hidden gems) — again, sticking with this idea of shows offering a small number of episodes that can be finished over the course of a weekend, at most.
These breezy, binge-able Netflix series include everything from foreign-language dramas to compelling docuseries, fan-favorite thrillers, and much more.
- Wednesday (8 episodes): If you’re one of the few people on the planet who hasn’t tried this massive Netflix hit yet, this series is an Addams Family spinoff focused on the title character, Wednesday Addams.
- Women at War (8 episodes): This limited series follows four women grappling with the devastating consequences of World War I on the homefront.
- Narco-Saints (6 episodes): This Korean crime series is about a businessman who joins a secret government mission to capture a Korean drug lord in South America.
- The Playlist (6 episodes): A dramatization of the rise of Spotify.
- The Billion Dollar Code (4 episodes): Limited series dramatizing events that led to the launch of Google Earth, centered around a high-stakes patent battle between Google and a tiny, scrappy startup.
- Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street (4 episodes): Limited series chronicling the rise and fall of the late disgraced financier Bernie Madoff.
- Shahmaran (8 episodes): Here’s the official Netflix logline for this original series from Turkey: ““Going to Adana as a lecturer, Şahsu is determined to confront her grandfather, who left her mother behind years ago. On this journey, she finds herself in the middle of an unusual and mysterious community called Mar, descended from Shahmaran. Believing in the legend of Shahmaran, one of the greatest symbols of love and wisdom, the Mar race awaits the completion of the historical prophecy with the arrival of Şahsu. Nothing will be the same again when Şahsu’s path crosses with Maran’s.”
- Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (10 episodes): This Netflix anime series is set in a dystopian world of corruption and cybernetic implants. It’s set in a futuristic metropolis called Night City, where everyone is obsessed with technology and body modifications. Meanwhile, a street kid stays alive by becoming a mercenary outlaw known as an “edgerunner.”
- Spycraft (8 episodes): This docuseries goes deep on how secret agents do their job using their very particular set of skills and tools of the trade.
- Lockwood & Co. (8 episodes): From the official synopsis for this Netflix series: “In a world plagued by ghosts, three teens band together as paranormal investigators, risking what little they have to unravel a diabolical conspiracy.”
- The Empress (6 episodes): Think of this German-language Netflix series, based on the true story of Austria’s Empress Sisi, as a sort of German spin on The Crown.
- Lupin (10 episodes across 2 seasons): Per Netflix: “Inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin, gentleman thief Assane Diop sets out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted by a wealthy family.”
- Russian Doll (15 episodes across 2 seasons): Natasha Lyonne is the showrunner and star of this Emmy-winning series, in which she portrays Nadia — who, in Season 1, is a woman stuck in a surreal time loop as she keeps dying and reliving her 36th birthday party.
- 1899 (8 episodes): Netflix canceled this series after 1 season, but it’s well worth your time, regardless. From the makers of Netflix’s Dark, this show follows an immigrant ship from Europe bound for New York City … and the bizarre mysteries that it encounters along the way.
- Lost Ollie (4 episodes): This Netflix limited series didn’t get near the attention it deserves when it debuted in August of 2022. An overly simplistic way to describe it is as a kind of Toy Story for adults — or, at least, for more mature viewers. This series was inspired by the book Ollie’s Odyssey by author and illustrator William Joyce, and Netflix describes it as, basically, “an epic adventure about a lost toy who braves the many dangers of childhood as he searches the countryside to reunite with the boy who lost him.”
- The End of the F***ing World (16 episodes): Per Netflix: “A budding teen psychopath and a rebel hungry for adventure embark on a star-crossed road trip in this darkly comic series based on a graphic novel.”
- Gunther’s Millions (4 episodes): That old saying about truth being stranger than fiction? Someone obviously came up with it to refer to Netflix series like this one, in which we meet a dog with a trust fund and his owner living a luxe life with a cult-like entourage.
- Copenhagen Cowboy (6 episodes): This trippy Danish crime series follows a woman with supernatural abilities who sets out to take revenge on everyone who’s wronged her, after a lifetime of being sold as a “human good luck charm,” per Netflix.
